Apple Repair Tech Posted Woman's Explicit iPhone Photos to Facebook (msn.com) 157
"Apple paid a multimillion dollar settlement to a woman after iPhone repair techs posted risque pictures from her phone to Facebook," reports the Washington Post, citing legal documents obtained by the Telegraph.
An unnamed Oregon college student "sent her phone to Apple for repairs after it stopped working" in 2016, and the iPhone ended up at Apple-approved repair contractor Pegatron... Two iPhone repair technicians in Sacramento, uploaded "10 photos of her in various stages of undress and a sex video" to her Facebook account, resulting in "severe emotional distress" for the young woman, according to the Telegraph's review of legal records. Pegatron, a major Apple manufacturer with facilities across the globe, had to reimburse Apple for the settlement and face insurers who didn't want to pay for it, according to the news outlet...
The settlement isn't the first time Apple has had to handle the misdeeds of employees. In 2019, a California woman alleged that an Apple store employee had texted a private picture on her phone to himself. That employee was no longer working for the company after Apple conducted its investigation. Apple store employees at a Brisbane, Australia, location were fired in 2016 for taking candid pictures of female employees and customers' bodies and stealing photos from consumers' phones to rank their bodies.
"Apple keeps a firm grip on the repair of its devices, arguing that allowing only approved retailers and vendors to repair its products ensures the privacy of its customers," the article points out.
"The revelation of the lawsuit pokes holes in the company's stance that only authorized retailers can keep customer information secure."
An unnamed Oregon college student "sent her phone to Apple for repairs after it stopped working" in 2016, and the iPhone ended up at Apple-approved repair contractor Pegatron... Two iPhone repair technicians in Sacramento, uploaded "10 photos of her in various stages of undress and a sex video" to her Facebook account, resulting in "severe emotional distress" for the young woman, according to the Telegraph's review of legal records. Pegatron, a major Apple manufacturer with facilities across the globe, had to reimburse Apple for the settlement and face insurers who didn't want to pay for it, according to the news outlet...
The settlement isn't the first time Apple has had to handle the misdeeds of employees. In 2019, a California woman alleged that an Apple store employee had texted a private picture on her phone to himself. That employee was no longer working for the company after Apple conducted its investigation. Apple store employees at a Brisbane, Australia, location were fired in 2016 for taking candid pictures of female employees and customers' bodies and stealing photos from consumers' phones to rank their bodies.
"Apple keeps a firm grip on the repair of its devices, arguing that allowing only approved retailers and vendors to repair its products ensures the privacy of its customers," the article points out.
"The revelation of the lawsuit pokes holes in the company's stance that only authorized retailers can keep customer information secure."
Apple can pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Apple can pay (Score:2)
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
Good luck getting anything but an apology when your corner repair center posts your sex video online, or the high school kids working there spreads it around their school. Thinking that a local repair facility is less likely to post your naked pictures, or more likely to have ability to compensate, is delusional.
You can also demolish the corner repair center with a baseball bat or break the little twerp's knees more easily and far more succinctly.
You can't really do that to a corporation. Unless we all do it together.
Apple IS kinda really asking for it, building their house out of glass and all... Not only is it all susceptible to baseball bats - there's nowhere to hide. They don't even have fuckin corners anymore.
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You should expect jail time for that kind of thing. At least in the UK businesses usually have insurance to cover this kind of compensation so chances are you should get your pay-out too.
Re: Apple can pay (Score:2)
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Some things are priceless, like your privacy. A payout might not undo that damage.
If I got a couple of million dollars, I might be able to live just fine with some pictures of me and a girlfriend being leaked... and I'm already doing better than average economically.
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Never put anything on your phone you don't (Score:2)
want posted to 4chan.
If you have compromising content you don't want shared either fix it yourself, destroy your toy, or have the sense to put it on microSD card for easy removal (not an option on functionally crippled phones but you knew what you signed up for).
Non-techies won't think that way but their antics and noodz will amuse us.
Re: Never put anything on your phone you don't (Score:2)
We need the right to repair. (Score:5, Insightful)
We need the right to repair. We need the right to repair. We need the right to repair. Say it again? We need the right to repair.
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She could've had someone she knows and trusts repair it for her, instead of handing it over to some faceless multi-national corporation, who pawned it off to another faceless multi-national subcontractor. (Pegatron is the former ODM branch of Asus [wikipedia.org], and is responsible for making about 8% of all laptops in the world by the latest figures. In case you didn't know, an ODM is like an OEM except they also design the product. Name brands like Apple, Dell, Lenovo, etc. don't actually make laptops. They hire an ODM to make it for them, to be sold under the name brand's label.) On the repair side too, a small repair shop lives and dies by its reputation. Word gets out that one of its employees did something like this, and it goes out of business. A bigger company cares less. They just fire the guy and distribute a press release saying that the offending party has been terminated, and that they uphold the highest standards of behavior. That's part of what you give up when you eschew the local mom and pop shop, in order to get a slightly lower price at a big box retailer.
You think most people knows and trust a repair shop? Very unlikely... and if she did, that's probably the last place she'd want to hand in a phone with sexy pictures. I'd care less if some faceless stranger saw pictures of me than if people I knew did.
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I agree, but that wouldn't necessarily have changed anything here. Instead of some contractor, she may have ended up taking the phone directly to someone that swiped her photos. There's a chain of trust that needs to be established, and you never know who the bad actor is going to be. Maybe with a small shop they can't afford to do something stupid like this, but when you look at all the crimes committed in broad daylight by people that have a weird notion that they won't get caught, I bet you'd hear about
Protip (Score:2)
Assume that everything you do with a phone can and will be observed by others.
Apple keeps a firm grip... (Score:2)
Apple keeps a firm grip on the repair of its devices
What are they doing with their other hand?
Thats' why I by cheap Anroids phone (Score:2)
$150 is nothing if one breaks to replace it especially if I photos of doing things to my orifices and shafts at hooker and blow parties..
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Just make sure you save your needed stuff to micro sd other wise I only take photos of my cats and at hooker and blow parties.
in other words: if you want to make million$ ... (Score:3)
To HER Facebook Account! (Score:2)
From the story:
Two iPhone repair technicians in Sacramento, uploaded “10 photos of her in various stages of undress and a sex video” to her Facebook account.
So they also stole credentials and logged in to her Facebook account?! What criminal penalties did these (if properly charged) felons actually face?
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So they also stole credentials and logged in to her Facebook account?!
The way I read the story, they used her device to do the posting, and her device was already logged in.
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This story is... (Score:2, Funny)
worthless without pics.
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Fundamental Security Flaw (Score:3)
Specifically, why haven’t Apple designed iOS so that a technician can access the device with enough privilege to ensure that it is functioning correctly, whilst the legitimate owner’s personal information is locked away [encrypted] with a key held in the device’s Secure Enclave. That way, even if the technician tried to access the owner’s photo library, they would not be able to.
Obviously, this entire line of thought becomes a moot point if the owner of the handset gives up their PIN number if asked. But this smacks of being a fundamental problem with Apple’s much-vaunted security. A bit like the lies they offer around security of data in the Cloud - for example I tried and failed to help a friend who was unable to get bookmarks to sync between her iPad and her iPhone and was present when she called Apple Support only to hear the Apple Tech she was speaking with recite some of the bookmarks present on her device. Like: how?
They talk a good talk, but I’m not sure their much-vaunted support for privacy is worth all that much.
No security? (Score:2)
Did this iPhone have no security not to let this happen?
Easy to prevent (Score:3)
If people just stopped CREATING those photos and videos, there would be nothing to steal/leak.
Those who take naked photos (Score:2)
Those who take naked photos are doomed to repeat history.
I keep waiting for people to get smarter (Score:3)
It's the equivalent of "Hi! My photo album, full of nude picture of myself and sex photos, has a broken hinge. Can you, random repair person at a large company, repair it from me? I secretly hope you don't look at anything inside it."
These aren't 70 year old seniors making this mistake, these are people who grew up with the technology. It's as if we're all collectively getting more gullible and dumber.
Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches me? (Score:5, Interesting)
Surely an ethical company like Apple compensates their employees well enough that they're able to recruit and retain folks who're above this sort of thing??
It wasn't Apple, it was a partner. I am not ready to blame Apple that this happened, so long as they do what they can to make things right.
In my view, this was a criminal act performed by an Apple partner. It's akin to being punched in the face by a Best Buy employee in the Apple section of the store. It's a criminal act. The police have jurisdiction. I don't really see why Apple needs to be brought into this. Best Buy definitely needs to be held accountable and their screening process needs to be investigated. I am not sure Apple needs any scrutiny for this. I'd feel the same way if Pegatron did this repairing a Google or Samsung phone.
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It wasn't Apple, it was a partner.
Surely they could hire better partners who could compensate their employees well enough that...
Apple is the company that is legally liable here no matter how you slice it. Period. She called Apple for repair, gave the phone to who she rightfully presumed was Apple. What happens from there is entirely on Apple. The only way around that is if Apple did something to the effect of asking her to choose a repair shop, then reimburse the cost of the repair to her. They would have partial liability if they dictated
Re:Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I completely disagree with blaming the company for anything here. The sole responsible party is the guy who took advantage of having access to the woman's phone and pictures and he had nothing better to do than to post them somewhere as well..
You cannot blame a company for something that is absolutely impossible to predict like that some guy would do. Ever been asked at any interview whether you would post someone's pictures that you got from their phone/computer? How can someone even think about asking a question like that, it's the same thing as asking: would you throw acid into a person's face?
We assume that people coming to interviews understand not to hurt people by throwing acid into their faces, so we also assume that people know better than taking advantage of a client like that.
I completely disagree that there is anything that anyone has done wrong here beside the guy himself, who did what he did.
Did the company promote the attitude that it is OK to do that? IF yes, then yeah, you have a point.
IF NOT, then you cannot blame this company for it, this guy would have done something similar to someone else anywhere he could have access to, so at any employer at all. It doesn't matter that it is Apple, it could be Samsung, it could be Home Depot, it could be a bank or a store or a private washroom.... he is just a stupid person with bad and wrong intentions.
No, I am totally against anyone suing any employer for this type of behaviour of any employee if the employer did not promote this type of behaviour. It makes no sense, nobody knows what anyone will do in any particular situation, it's impossible to know the future this way.
Re:Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree completely. Companies end up liable in these situations simply because deep pockets.
Anyone who's ever had a job knows companies do training that covers lots and lots of stuff that no one should ever do.
There's really no way for a company to 100% prevent this; at some point trust is required, and occasionally people will betray that trust.
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I agree completely. Companies end up liable in these situations simply because deep pockets.
No, they're liable because that's the entire point of a corporation. That corporate entity has all of the rights and responsibilities (save for voting rights) as a natural person, which means its agents (employees, or contractors in this case) bear legal responsibility for any torts. The advantage of this is that if you're running a business and somebody sues you, they have to sue the business and can't otherwise touch your personal assets, only what the business owns. Now that doesn't forbid the corporate
Re: Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:2)
Companies have "deep pockets" because that who's charging you. Let Joe Worker handle finances directly with me - me paying him the hourly rate his company does - and you may have a point.
Of course that makes Joe my direct contract partner.
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I agree completely. Companies end up liable in these situations simply because deep pockets. Anyone who's ever had a job knows companies do training that covers lots and lots of stuff that no one should ever do. There's really no way for a company to 100% prevent this; at some point trust is required, and occasionally people will betray that trust.
Companies are liable because they are the ones who accepted to do the work, and is your contractual party. E.g. if an employee broke your phone in the process of repairing it, the company is the one who has to ensure that you get a phone in return anyway - maybe it will try to recover its cost fr,o the employee, e.g. if the breakage was caused by not following the standard operating procedures or doing something grossly negligent ("let's see if I can juggle 4 phones at once"), but that's not your problem.
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Let's make a car analogy.
I give my car to the dealer for a repair.
The mechanic botches something.
Who's at fault here? The dealer? Or the mechanic?
Did I have any contractual relation with the mechanic?
Did I brought the car directly to the mechanic?
Would I bring the car directly to the mechanic?
In my opinion, the company didn't held its part of the deal (or part of the deal).
This is why, in some locations, they wipe out your phone (Return to Manufacturers Settings) before allowing it for repairs.
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Actually I completely disagree with blaming the company for anything here. The sole responsible party is the guy who took advantage of having access to the woman's phone and pictures and he had nothing better to do than to post them somewhere as well..
In the eyes the law, Apple is liable. Full stop. That's how tort laws work.
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No it's not.
The customer has a contract with Apple.
They do not have a direct contract with Apple's employees or subcontractors, nor does Apple provide them any ability to choose or vet the subcontractors or employees working on their case.
Apple is responsible for ensuring the contract gets fulfilled and that all applicable laws are complied with.
Apple could easily avoid this liability, by referring the customer directly to a third party repair service, allowing the customer to have a contract directly with
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And if you're not liable at all, why bother with any form of vetting at all?
I'm sure prison operators would gladly supply cheap workers.
If someone leverages a facility provided to them by their employer to commit murder then absolutely the employer should be held liable as well as the employee. Airlines have had to face significant compensation payouts because a rogue pilot used one of their aircraft to murder people (and himself in the process).
If a murderous apple employee murdered his victims in an apple
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Certain jobs are attractive to certain kinds of criminals.
Where a criminal wants to gain access to people's personal data, working in a phone repair business facilitates that because they probably wouldn't have access to people's phones otherwise.
Similarly, pedophiles will often try to get jobs which allow them to be around kids. A random guy on the street is unlikely to have access to kids very often.
Apple have a duty of care to keep their customer's data confidential. That's why they have insurance, vetti
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The company is not *automatically* responsible, but if Apple had some kind of duty of care that it failed to perform, and that failure contributed to this happening, then it could reasonably be sued. I think Apple's responsibility depends on circumstances, possibly ones we won't ever hear about because this has been settled.
Since we don't know the details, let's imagine a hypothetical scenario. Suppose the subcontractor had a track history of complaints about techs misusing their access to customer data. N
Re: Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:2)
Who the holy F modded this insightful?
It's always your contract partner who is - and should be - on the hook when contract obligations are disturbed. That's by definition the company, in this case Apple. Once they pony up the damage they can try and stick it to *their* contract partner instead (subcontractor, employee...) if they so wish.
If the employee follows you home, then steals, rapes or murders, that's when the company is *possibly* off the hook - that's not something related to the contract. Unless y
Re: Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punche (Score:2)
Nice ideas, but you're very confused about how law works. At the level we're talking about there's no "intetpretation".
The details differ from country to country, but essentially every "law" action needs a reason. The big fields are: civil law, penal law, administrative law. In broad strokes, civil law concerns two civil parties - two persons, companies, corporatiobs etc; when somebody "sues' anybody else, that's civil law. Penal law concerns one civil party on ine side, and the state on the other. Always.
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Whatever, I get your point, I disagree, but that's all a matter of opinion.
What is not a matter of opinion is that Apple is heavily lobbying against Right to Repair, by claiming that you put your data at risk by using 3rd party services, and only they can assure safety of your data by limiting you to servicing their hardware at their authorized services.
As most clearly shown, and as your post very much emphasizes - they can't! It's false advertisement, it's lying to state representatives, and it's profiteer
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I also assume that you think Boeing isn't liable for the 737 MAX issues since it was just a few employees who screwed up?
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s.b.
Re:Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:4, Informative)
Suppose you hire a contractor to reroof your house and the contractor hires a "one man" independent subcontractor to do the actual work (unbeknownst to you and via a transaction which you have no control over). That subcontractor screws up and, while heat welding the membrane, sets your house on fire and it burns to the ground.
It seems you don't think you (or your homeowner's insurance company) have a claim against contractor for damages. Is that correct?
Do you think you (or your homeowner's insurance company) have a claim against the subcontractor?
It seems that even if the contractor had hired an employee to do the work (vs. a subcontractor) and that employee made the same error that you still don't think you have a claim against the contractor. Is that correct?
It seems that you think the only claim would generally be against the individual who made the mistake, who is perhaps just a low wage employee, rather than the business hiring them. Is that correct?
That would have incredible implications for almost all fields.
A McDonald's employee who fails to follow policy and doesn't wait until the floor is completely dry before removing the "Warning, Slippery Floor" signs would be personally liable for any injuries or deaths that result and the franchise would have no liability.
A software developer who screwed up and didn't catch a numeric overflow when working on a project with tens of millions of lines of code and hundreds of developers and that numeric overflow ended up costing customers tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars would be individually responsible for that damage (as, perhaps, would the code reviewers and QA staff). That would be the case even if the defect was only exposed when the number of microseconds since some base date exceeded the limits of the numeric type and that happened twenty years after the developer no longer worked for the employer (and, perhaps, long after the employee had died).
Of course, these individual employees would generally have no option but to declare bankruptcy and (depending on the state) lose almost all their assets and and those injured would still, usually, not be fully compensated for the damages caused to them.
A UPS driver who is an employee driving a company owned truck and who ran through a red light because they didn't notice the light and hit a mini-van with a family in it would individually be liable for the lifetime care of all six members of the family who are now quadriplegics - and UPS wouldn't have any liability.
That's just a bizarre outcome that seems counter to the whole notion of companies and corporations. Why should a company be able to shed liability for work they are being paid for and pass that liability onto employees instead?
Individuals performing services have responsibilities. Businesses performing services also have responsibilities. When I contract with a business to do a job or provide a service to me, that business is responsible for the results, not the workers who performed the work (assuming the bad results, including death and injury, are not the result of the employee engaging in criminal acts - in that case both the individual and the employer may be liable depending on the situation).
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You are comparing someone's *mistake* at doing their job (which is what business insurance is for) to someone doing something *malicious*, something that a company could not have anticipated that could happen at all, because it is impossible to anticipate actions of an individual, where they are not even related to the actual function of what he is supposed to do.
If the case was that an employer (of a subcontractor by the way, not of Apple itself), screwed up while trying to fix the phone and caused a phone
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So, if the UPS driver was drunk, UPS wouldn't be liable but if he just got distracted by looking at a sign on a business UPS would be liable?
If the roofing employee was drunk (not illegal in most cases) and burned your house down, your insurance and you would have no claim against the contractor, just the individual worker, but if he forgot, against instructions with the device, to turn the welding device off and left it on your roof during lunch resulting in your house burning down you and your insurance c
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If Apple had been trusted with the woman's life as a security contractor, yes, they might well be liable for an employee that murdered her instead of protecting her. Her family would have suffered damages from Apple failing to do the job they were hired to do.
When a send your phone/computer in for repair, you have entrusted it to the company and it is assumed that they will return it to you and that they won't broadcast the information on it to the whole world. If an employee steals it, the company owes you
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That's why commercial aircraft always have 2 pilots, and regulations in many countries require at least 2 members of crew to be on the flight deck at all times - they were tightened after a rogue pilot intentionally crashed an aircraft a few years ago. Pilots also typically do undergo psychiatric evaluations, and are required to regularly take refresher training.
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Surely they could hire better partners who could compensate their employees well enough that...
And how would Apple do that? Why are you implying that somehow the partner's employee would not have done the exact same thing if they were paid more. In my personal experience, the most immoral and douchiest people I have met were the best paid.
Apple is the company that is legally liable here no matter how you slice it. Period.
Not even Apple is disputing this; however, I will dispute Apple is personally responsible for the actions of third party contractors.
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[TFS] Pegatron, a major Apple manufacturer with facilities across the globe, had to reimburse Apple for the settlement and face insurers who didn't want to pay for it, according to the news outlet..
Apple is the company that is legally liable here no matter how you slice it. Period.
The above quote from TFS may beg to differ. If Apple were legally liable, I don't think they'd be able to get Pegatron to reimburse them.
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The above quote from TFS may beg to differ. If Apple were legally liable, I don't think they'd be able to get Pegatron to reimburse them.
From the perspective of the customer, Apple is liable, period. The customer didn't do business with Pegatron, they did business with Apple. That doesn't stop Apple from then suing Pegatron separately, nor does it stop Pegatron from suing its employee. However, none of that matters to the customer.
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Apple provided the service to the customer and is therefore liable to the customer for this. Pegatron will have a contract with Apple that will make them responsible for any liabilities caused by their employees. It's fairly straight forward really and I don't understand why so many Slashdotters seem to be unable to grasp how it works.
Re: Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:2)
Apple is the company that is legally liable here no matter how you slice it. Period. She called Apple for repair, gave the phone to who she rightfully presumed was Apple. What happens from there is entirely on Apple. The only way around that is if Apple did something to the effect of asking her to choose a repair shop, then reimburse the cost of the repair to her. They would have partial liability if they dictated which shop she brought it to and then paid them through a back channel. But none of that happened; it was made to appear that she was giving the phone to Apple themselves.
Depending on the statutory and case law in the particular jurisdiction in question, you could be right; or not.
Pegatron was a Subcontractor (and the actual tortfeasor was presumably a Pegatron Employee) , not an Apple Employee, and some jurisdictions hold that the relationship does not confer liability "upwards" to Apple. There is no "Respondeat Superior" (Master and Servant) relationship between Apple and the Tortfeasor; nor between
Apple and Pegatron.
This happened for years in medical malpractice cases inv
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On the other hand, the phone was entrusted to Apple by the customer for repair, not Pegatron, so it was Apple who violated her trust by giving it to an untrustworthy partner.
That said, what’s not mentioned in the summary is that this case is from 2016. As in, despite being reported on this week, it was settled five years ago. In all likelihood, everyone involved was glad to have put it behind them, but it was just recently dug up in an investigation, and now that it has been Apple hasn’t shied a
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In general, if you send your product to a company for repair and it is received by them, THAT company is responsible for whatever transpires with that product until it is handed off to a shipper to return to you.
It doesn't matter if they hire employees to work on it or subcontract out the work - their financial liability remains the same as your contract, implicit or explicit, is with the original company, not whatever contractors (if any) that they choose to subcontract the work out to. You typically have
Re: Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:2)
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Except apple spent a lot of money preventing YOU from being able to make the same repairs and buy the same parts to ensure you maintain control over the device at all time. In fact apple lobbied congress that by forcing you to use THEIR subcontractees, your data is MORE secure. They were very wise to settle out of court. At the heart of the lawsuit is the entire Right-to-Repair principle. SCOTUS seems to be very pro digital privacy lately, crossing partisan lines to where younger justices are all of like mind on the subject. Apple would have settled for $100M to keep this out of judgement.
And this is why I made this comment [slashdot.org] a couple of days ago. The problem is that Apple, rather than making it possible for repairs to be verified without booting the operating system, so that your data would be safe, chose instead to make your devices "more secure" by requiring you to unlock them for repairs (WTF?) so that the repair tech can run a special tool to "pair" the fingerprint reader with the device.
All Apple had to do was provide a tool for the techs to sanity check the hardware without actually bo
Re:Can I sue Apple if a Best Buy employee punches (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Unbelievable. (Score:3)
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Surely an ethical company like Apple compensates their employees well enough that they're able to recruit and retain folks who're above this sort of thing??
Remember when it was only the employees at Walmart who could look at the negatives while they were processing your films? Those were the days.
Gentlemen take Polaroids.
Victim Blaming + unreasonable paranoia (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bad idea to leave your phone at a repair shop. Either fix it yourself or stay at the repair store until the technician fixes the phone. I thought this was common knowledge but apparently not
You're half right. Yes, life is safer when you're cautious and paranoid, but I don't think that's reasonable. You're blaming the victim. It's like saying. "Oh you got mugged? You shouldn't have been walking outside in East St Louis."
"Oh, you got raped? You shouldn't have gotten drunk at a party with boys."
"Oh, you got knocked out and raped? You shouldn't have let Bill Cosby make you a cup of coffee."
This is was done by a severely broken excuse for a human being. It's a crime. This is what prisons are for.
If you're of the paranoid mindset, you can think of 20 million scenarios in which you can be a victim and avoid it all, but it's just not reasonable. Imagine telling your daughter 1000 scenarios in which she can be a victim of a crime and then getting annoyed she forgot one. I even half agree with you. I would personally never leave anything I don't want getting out on my phone, but that's because my wife and kids are constantly borrowing it (why can't women ever learn how to keep their phone charged?)
However, sex videos are not illegal and are really mainstream nowadays. I bet half the adults under 40 have taken a sexually explicit photo or video in the last year. I think most people who are dating have sent a suggestive pic at some point. I literally saw a coworker pull out her phone in the lunchroom, hoping to show a pic from her weekend in a routine office small talk conversation, but accidentally showing me her tits (a pic intended for her boyfriend) when her finger accidentally swiped the photo when handing it to me. All I could say is "Hmm, I don't think that's the strawberry picking photo you were hoping to show me." and we very nervously laughed and never spoke of it again. Dirty pics are common. This woman is not a freak or unusual. She shouldn't have to be paranoid that she will be exploited by a professional paid to repair her phone. She was a victim of a crime. She should have been able to trust him not to post her dirty pics to facebook .
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That's all fine, but having one's naughty pix on any device connected to the Internet is incredibly stupid.
Basically any device that can store and display pictures and videos is going to be at least at risk of being Internet connected these days. Today, as in prior decades (but even more so), the only safe course of action is NOT TO TAKE any naughty pix.
A very successful victim (Score:2)
Millions of dollars compo for some sexy photos?!
Sure it was wrong, but hardly destroying. Few people would actually see them, and if they did they would think just another naked woman. And even if they circulated around her work place people would have a giggle at her expense but that would be it.
I doubt if one woman in a thousand would not like to be receiving millions of dollars for such an event. Especially as she can show that she did not intend to publish the photos, so is on morally high ground.
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Depends on the culture...
Having naked photos circulating around could be extremely shameful in some cultures, both for the individual involved and their family. People have been stoned to death for less.
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They were posted on her own Facebook page. Because the technicians had the phone, so they could access the woman's Facebook.
So the few people who would actually see them are probably all her friends and family. Things like that have driven people to suicide before. Don't underestimate the damage this caused.
Re: Victim Blaming + unreasonable paranoia (Score:2)
Stupid things
At Stupid times
With Stupid people
In Stupid Places
You live longer if you abide by them. Its called the Rule of stupid. Maybe camera roll needs a private/pu
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While it would be ideal to send just the device (And no data) for repair, this is often not possible especially in these days of soldered in storage.
With some independent repair shops, if you took your laptop to repair a hardware fault they would remove the drive and give it back to you prior to starting the repair. They don't need access to the drive to repair a hardware fault like a cracked screen etc.
For a software fault obviously they do, but they should do this in your presence and explain the situatio
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Not all of these are the same:
"Oh you got mugged? You shouldn't have been walking outside in East St Louis."
You knew the danger and yet you went anyways. Ok.
"Oh, you got raped? You shouldn't have gotten drunk at a party with boys."
You knew the danger and yet you went anyways. Ok.
"Oh, you got knocked out and raped? You shouldn't have let Bill Cosby make you a cup of coffee."
You didn't know the danger, so of course you took the coffee. Ok.
These scenes are not equivalent. In two cases, you knew there was danger and proceeded anyway. In the third scene, you had no reason to expect danger.
If you have reason to suspect danger, then yes, you play a part in all of that. Does it absolve the perpetrator? Fuck no, but it does give someone the justification for
You're still victim blaming (Score:4, Insightful)
Victim-blaming is for when people do stupid stuff that should have set off a hundred red flags - handing over your naked pictures to a stranger raises at least one of those. They may not be guilty of a "legal" crime, but they are guilty of a "Darwinian" crime. Success (or survival or avoidance of bad stuff or whatever is an appropriate term here) in life is not about making the legally defensible decisions, it is about making the smart decisions, and this article was an example of the opposite of that. Sometimes it's really hard to figure out which decision is the smart one; this was not one of those cases. As such, I'd say victim-blaming is right on the money.
He is accused of posting her sex videos on Facebook. That's fucked up. It's an abuse of trust for a repair person to view them. It's unexpectedly malicious to post them on Facebook. I get wanting to look at dirty pics. I'd certainly have to remind myself it's wrong to look...I'd never think to maliciously harm this woman by posting them. I think it's pretty extraordinary to post illegally obtained pics on facebook. I don't fault her one bit for not thinking of that. She's not upset someone saw them. She's upset someone went the extra mile to do something so unnecessarily malicious.
Yes, had she never left the pics on the phone, they'd not be posted. Had I never left the house, I would have been mugged several years walking down Harrison Street in Chicago at 4pm. Once could say the same about nearly every victim of a crime that occurred outside their house. The blame should fall solely on the person who committed the crime. That's the legal standard and I think that's the common sense standard here.
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An even worse idea is to leave your naughty pix and vids on any device which isn't in your direct control 24x7.
Clearly as soon as the iPhone stopped working she should have removed the pictures from it before sending it out for repair. Amirite?
Re: Don't leave your phone at a repair service (Score:2)
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How?
People use their phones for EVERYTHING these days...
If it doesn't contain naked photos, it's likely to contain credentials for your online banking, copies of your personal emails etc. Even if you're using multi factor authentication your phone is often used as your authentication token either through an app running on it, or through the ability to receive sms.
Gaining access to someone's phone usually gives you a SIGNIFICANT level of access to that person's life. And to compound the issue:
1) Because so m
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How? People use their phones for EVERYTHING these days... If it doesn't contain naked photos, it's likely to contain credentials for your online banking, copies of your personal emails etc. Even if you're using multi factor authentication your phone is often used as your authentication token either through an app running on it, or through the ability to receive sms.
Gaining access to someone's phone usually gives you a SIGNIFICANT level of access to that person's life. And to compound the issue:
1) Because so many things are now tied to your phone, a faulty phone now becomes a severe detriment to your life. You want to get it fixed ASAP. 2) In many cases if the phone is faulty, you will not be able to remove the data from it prior to sending it for repair. For a smashed screen sure you should be able to do a wipe, but a phone that fails to boot what can you do?
Credentials, like those stored in 1password and Apple Keychain, are always encrypted and are also protected by password and/or biometric authentication.
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An even worse idea is to leave your naughty pix and vids on any device which isn't in your direct control 24x7. It sucks this happened to her but there's not enough bubble wrap in the world to protect against that kind of stupid.
To be fair: In retrospect, the leak is probably one of the best things that ever happened to her[*]. For a couple of million dollars, you suddenly have a much better future - all for some pictures of something every woman does anyway.
[*] Some exceptions might certainly apply - e.g. if she is already rather well off and a celebrity.
Re:Don't leave your phone at a repair service (Score:4, Insightful)
That's usually not practical, and in many cases impossible. Many times you have to mail in the device (which based on the description, presumably that's what happened here) though even in cases where you actually bring it in somewhere, almost always the tech is in a back room somewhere that customers aren't allowed to go. And even if you could go there, there are many other people who probably had their phones there first, and they're getting repaired FIFO, which means you'll be sitting there a long time, possibly days.
Re: Don't leave your phone at a repair service (Score:3)
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It's a bad idea to leave your phone at a repair shop. Either fix it yourself or stay at the repair store until the technician fixes the phone. I thought this was common knowledge but apparently not
And log out of all your connected accounts before handing your device (phone, PC, etc...) over to someone else. (The TFS/A said the tech uploaded the photos and video to *her* Facebook account...)
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It's a bad idea to leave your phone at a repair shop. Either fix it yourself or stay at the repair store until the technician fixes the phone. I thought this was common knowledge but apparently not
And log out of all your connected accounts before handing your device (phone, PC, etc...) over to someone else. (The TFS/A said the tech uploaded the photos and video to *her* Facebook account...)
Noting that if her iPhone was inoperable enough to do this directly, most (all?) sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc... allow you to disconnect sessions from another logged in session (like your PC). Don't know if your password would still be stored/usable on the phone though. (anyone know otherwise?)
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Did he post them to *her* account or another one?
From quote in TFS:
Two iPhone repair technicians in Sacramento, uploaded "10 photos of her in various stages of undress and a sex video" to her Facebook account, ...
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Re: Don't leave your phone at a repair service (Score:2)
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For whatever reason, lately if you send in your device for tradein or even turn it over for a screen repair you gotta turn off find my iphone. Otherwise it bricks the device. Turning off FMIP to replace a screen makes me paranoid. Thats the only thing letting you lock the phone down in lost mode and wipe it.
Just wipe the phone. If the phone is inoperable enough that you can't do that, you're not going to be able to turn off "find my iPhone" either. You usually have backups in iCloud
.
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It's a bad idea to leave your phone at a repair shop. Either fix it yourself or stay at the repair store until the technician fixes the phone. I thought this was common knowledge but apparently not
One thing that surprises me is that the repair company got access... The device is encrypted, and when you mail in or deliver a device you don't hand over your passwords. IIRC, you are required to turn off "Find My iPhone" so it can be wiped - and you are warned that the data might not be there when you get the device back, so take a backup.
When I replaced the battery in an iPad I didn't even get the same device back - I got a box in which to package the device, which I should drop off at a UPS drop point.
Re: Don't leave your phone at a repair service (Score:2)
Re: Fake Marxists (Score:2)
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But to expect companies at this scale to never make a bad hire is just not practical.
That's exactly right, and all the more reason why we need our devices to be user-serviceable. Large companies are NOT concerned with our best interests.
Re: Fake Marxists (Score:2)
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Right to repair also means the right to choose who performs the repair.
Depending on the nature of the fault, for instance a screen or battery replacement could be done in your presence while you wait. The device never needs to be out of your sight, and whoever performs the repair doesn't need to log in to it. It should be possible to boot the device from a diagnostics image without needing access to the internal storage, and you should be able to diagnose and repair every component other than the storage it
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Do you know what ensures the privacy of customers' personal data? Letting the customer choose a local repairer who they trust. And if their privacy is breached, it is not your fault because the customer chose the repairer, not you.
It's the lamest excuse for Apple's control freakery ever.